The Piazza

A place where the monk class won't feel like an oddball. Kara-Tur can be discussed in the FR sub-forum. Rokugan, Mahasarpa and other Asian-themed worlds can be discussed here.
The Book-House: Find Oriental Adventures products.

A thousand cities with myriad customs fill the subcontinent of Bhurloka. Wandering ascetics practice austerities on mountaintops, seeking spiritual enlightenment and supernatural powers. Rajas stand before their palaces speaking to their peoples. Chariots roll and elephants march with armies to war.

But Bhurloka stands at the precipice of disaster. A sinister figure—the Dark Yogi—has risen to power. It is whispered that he has the ability to directly attack dharma, the very order of the universe, itself. Dharma, however, does not sit idly by. It has selected but a few to champion its cause. These Chosen of Dharma have the power to restore the balance of the world.

Tales of countless adventures in Bhurloka await the telling. Befriend the monkey-people, the vanaras. Face down the cruel rakshasa Ravema in his island fortress. Climb Mount Niru and visit the gods themselves. Treat with the naga tribes deep in the underworld, Patala. And much, much more!

Now is a time of legend!

Against the Dark Yogi is a complete roleplaying game set in a fantasy world inspired by Indian myths and legends. It’s features include:

A detailed take on stories and tropes from Indian myths without the need to be familiar with the mythology.

Run campaigns spanning multiple generations, with in-depth rules for creating and playing new incarnations of past heroes.

A system where player characters accrue both good and bad karma, bringing about consequences for their actions.

Power levels and game play designed to scale up, so players can be the big damn mythic heroes they always wanted to be!

A combat system designed to handle everything from epic duels to pitched battles, where the heroes lead or defeat armies.

Abilities and archetypes drawn directly from Indian myth!

Character sheets are available here. Electronic files come in PDF, MOBI and EPUB formats.

I only just heard about this RPG. It looks like a quality RPG just based on layout and support. I don't know anything about it though. Based on the character sheet, it uses Hit Points, but has 8 ability scores, skills and other abilities. It does not seem to be level based, but I could be wrong about this.

How easy would it be to buy some (or all) of this stuff and use Bhurloka with the rules from Oriental Adventures?

I bought the game, but haven't played it. It uses poker cards instead of dice, which isn't my style. There's something about rolling dice that I enjoy as part of my RPG experience. The skill system looks similar to the d20 task resolution: your attribute + your skill + the card you draw vs. a target number. Combat is based on chakra points that you spend to fuel actions.

My favorite part of the system is its vassals rules, where PCs can take on dozens or even hundreds of vassals (i.e., minions or mooks in other games). Vassals do damage based on the number of digits worth of vassals are fighting the PC. 10 vassals has 2 digits, so double the damage of a single vassal. 100 vassals has 3 digits, so you triple it. So their threat increases logarithmically as their numbers increase. Plus, the PCs have a stat called attrition. This is the amount of damage they apply to the horde of vassals when the vassals attack (not the other way around). The mere act of a group of vassals attacking a PC is enough for the vassals to take damage. And each point of damage a group of vassals receives represents one vassal who is taken out of the fight. So when the vassals attack, your character is so awesome, five vassals die as an afterthought.

The setting seems fairly tied into the system. The timeline is expected to advance by a generation, so your character will be reincarnated and become more enlightened, for example. You could probably take ideas from the setting, but it's not going to play the same using D&D. The epic battles alone would be nearly impossible using D&D without some sort of house rules.

I bought the game, but haven't played it. It uses poker cards instead of dice, which isn't my style. There's something about rolling dice that I enjoy as part of my RPG experience. The skill system looks similar to the d20 task resolution: your attribute + your skill + the card you draw vs. a target number. Combat is based on chakra points that you spend to fuel actions.

I prefer rolling dice too.

I wonder if chakra points could be swapped out for some sort of D&D thing...like Ki powe, karma, PSPs or somesuch.

My favorite part of the system is its vassals rules, where PCs can take on dozens or even hundreds of vassals (i.e., minions or mooks in other games). Vassals do damage based on the number of digits worth of vassals are fighting the PC. 10 vassals has 2 digits, so double the damage of a single vassal. 100 vassals has 3 digits, so you triple it. So their threat increases logarithmically as their numbers increase. Plus, the PCs have a stat called attrition. This is the amount of damage they apply to the horde of vassals when the vassals attack (not the other way around). The mere act of a group of vassals attacking a PC is enough for the vassals to take damage. And each point of damage a group of vassals receives represents one vassal who is taken out of the fight. So when the vassals attack, your character is so awesome, five vassals die as an afterthought.

That's a fairly radical change to the rules I use. Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing.

It seems like a generic concept that would appeal to a lot of people who want to run combats between PCs and large numbers of generic NPCs. I bet that someone could swap out part of the combat system of a lot of RPGs.

The setting seems fairly tied into the system. The timeline is expected to advance by a generation, so your character will be reincarnated and become more enlightened, for example. You could probably take ideas from the setting, but it's not going to play the same using D&D. The epic battles alone would be nearly impossible using D&D without some sort of house rules.

The timeline advancing generations might make that element a bit less easy to use in a long-term campaign.

I suppose this setting might tie in better with something like Council of Wyrms, that has it's own long-term storyline concept.